A Comedy

Tonight, Ladies and Gentlemen, come on down to the best, the greatest and the most HYSTERICAL show ever! Yes, that’s right, EVER! You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll soil your pants and laugh some more. Ladies and Gentlemen I GUARANTEE you this will be the most ENTERTAINING night of your life! Witness charismatic Kings, pathetic Dunces and beautiful Assistants who will perform the most HUMILIATING comedy ever! Magic! Torture! Song! Binge eating! Jokes and more!

In their latest show A Comedy, Brown Council lifts the curtain on comedy to reveal the darker and more malicious side of humour and laughter. A Comedy begins like a late-night variety show and escalates into the realm of violence, mortification and impossible conquests. It’s David Letterman-cum-hardcore endurance spectacle, with a little whack of Benny Hill slapstick and a splash of Bill Hicks cynicism. Manifesting as cardboard-capped dunces, Brown Council will perform a spectacular array of tricks and torture. Prepare to laugh, then groan, and finally realise how creepy you are for laughing at all!

So, Ladies and Gentlemen, relax and drink ’til you can’t feel your toes anymore. Get dirty, heckle and throw a tomato or two because it’s LIVE, it’s TRUE and it’s JUST FOR YOU!

“Brown Council are one of the most exciting emerging performance and video art outfits.” RealTime

Artist/s:

About the artist/s:

Brown Council is a Sydney based performance/video art collaboration consisting of four artists – Frances Barrett, Kate Blackmore, Kelly Doley and Diana Smith. Brown Council’s practice explores the intersections between visual culture, performance art and theatre. Brown Council reclaim, embody and dissect images, sounds and actions from the screen, art history and theatre to interrogate how it is that we should perform. Since meeting at the College of Fine Arts in 2005 Brown Council have devised and performed in a range of spaces including: Performance Space, Campbelltown Arts Centre, Pact Theatre, This is Not Art Festival, Parramatta Artist Studios, Australian Centre for Photography, Blacktown Regional Arts Centre, MOP projects and Firstdraft Gallery. Their most significant performance to date, Six Minute Soul Mate premiered at the 2008 Next Wave Festival. It was subsequently produced by Vitalstatistix Theatre for the 2009 Adelaide Fringe Festival and won Best Theatre Production and was a finalist for Best Performance.

A Comedy was developed with the assistance of Bundanon Trust Residency, Incubator Residency at NORPA, Lismore, Vital Statistix Theatre, Adelaide, One Month in the Country at Hot House Theatre, Albury (2010), the Nextwave Kickstart Program (2009), Quarterbred, Sydney (2009) http://browncouncil.blogspot.com

Kate Blackmore is a performer and video artist based in Sydney. In 2007 Kate completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts with Honours in Time Based Art at the College of Fine Arts, UNSW. In 2006 Kate performed in Nick Coyle’s original production, The October Sapphire that toured to the New York International Fringe Festival. Kate’s solo video works have shown at Chalk Horse, Firstdraft Gallery and Breenspace in Sydney, Kings Ari in Melbourne and her work was also selected for the World One Minutes exhibition which toured to Beijing, Prato, Sao Paolo and Brussels. In 2008 Kate performed in Dora Garcia’s What A Fucking Wonderful Audience for the Biennale of Sydney at the MCA and undertook a residency as part of the Underbelly Festival working in collaboration with performance artists Anastasia Zaravinos and Frances Barrett to produce a new work, Drag Acts. Kate is a director of artist run initiatives, Quarterbred and Serial Space.

Kelly Doley is an artist and performer based in Sydney. She completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the College of Fine Arts with Honours (Class 1) in painting and performance in 2006. In 2009 she received an Australian Postgraduate Award to complete a Masters of Fine Art by Research at Sydney College of the Arts. Kelly has completed numerous performance workshops in conjunction with PACT Theatre and has collaborated with established performance makers including Julie-Anne Long, Martin Del Amo and Andrew Morish. Kelly was the assistant set designer on the PACT production of Before the Lights Go Out at The Studio, Opera House and has extensive experience designing and constructing Brown Council’s sets and costumes. Since 2006 Kelly has also exhibited her solo work extensively galleries including: First Draft Gallery, ICAN and MOP Projects, Sydney and Kings Ari, Melbourne. Kelly recently started a new art space; The Cosmic Battle For Your Heart with two other artists in their lounge room.

Diana Smith is a practicing artist, curator and writer based in Sydney. Diana completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the College of Fine Arts and a Bachelor or Arts at the University of NSW with Honours (Class 1) in performance studies in 2007. Since 2005 Diana has completed numerous performance workshops in conjunction with PACT Theatre and has collaborated with established performance makers including Julie-Anne Long and Martin Del Amo. Diana completed a 9-month scholarship at PACT Theatre, which culminated in the production Before the Lights Go Out at The Studio, Opera House. In 2008 Diana performed in Dora Garcia’s What A Fucking Wonderful Audience for the Biennale of Sydney at the MCA and her writing has most recently been published in Performance Paradigm and un Magazine.

Frances Barrett is a practicing artist based in Sydney. Frances completed a Bachelor of Art History and Theory at the College of Fine Arts and a Bachelor or Arts at the University of NSW with Honours in 2007. Frances has performed her solo work at Io Myers Theatre, PACT Theatre and Workshop Showroom. She has undertaken workshops led by Julie-Ann Long and Andrew Morrish. In 2008 Frances undertook a residency with video artist, Kate Blackmore and performance artist Anastasia Zaravinos to produce Drag Acts which will premiere at Platform, Melbourne in 2010. As part of the 2008 Underbelly Festival, Frances performed in and co-devised a theatre work with Eddie Sharp, Some Film Museums that I have Known.